When comparing The Culling vs ARK: Survival Evolved, the Slant community recommends The Culling for most people. In the question“What are the best Action games on Steam?”The Culling is ranked 39th while ARK: Survival Evolved is ranked 40th. The most important reason people chose The Culling is:

Much like the movies The Hunger Games or Battle Royale (and a lesser extent Running Man), this game blends survival gameplay in with a game-show aspect of last man standing. While not new ideas in and of themselves, this is the first game to really capitalize on a current popular trend of similar movies and books.

Pros

Pro

Takes a popular concept and blends it with survival games

Much like the movies The Hunger Games or Battle Royale (and a lesser extent Running Man), this game blends survival gameplay in with a game-show aspect of last man standing. While not new ideas in and of themselves, this is the first game to really capitalize on a current popular trend of similar movies and books.

Pro

Increased customization thanks to player-created servers

Ark has hundreds, if not thousands, of great custom servers. You can control things such as PvP, experience, gathering, and taming rates, set things up so there's no griefing (constantly bullying a player or group of players), and the difficulty of the creatures.

Pro

You can share materials, dinosaurs, and structures by forming (or joining!) a tribe with your friends

Users can form a tribe with other online users to for a community. This community can now band together in order to build and grow as well as team up against other tribes. This makes for a fun experience with friends and other players as it requires teamwork in order to be successful.

Pro

You can tame and mount nearly every creature in the game

From the small, quick raptor to the massive, vicious giganotosaurus, you can mount nearly any dinosaur in the game. There's huge, flying dinosaurs, aquatic dinosaurs, some that are like walking fortresses, and others that can take those down.

Pro

The game makes you want to explore, craft, and fight to make the most of its progressive crafting system

Ark is unlike many survival games in that you attain levels as you progress. As you level higher and higher, you gain access to more craftable items. Some are just more powerful versions of lower-tier items (such as leather armor vs. cloth armor), but most are brand new (such as firearms, scuba gear, and saddles for more powerful dinosaurs). This really drives you to explore more areas to find rarer resources and fight stronger dinosaurs.

Pro

An absolutely fantastic community

The community for Ark is simply great. Whether you're talking about custom servers, the modding community, or just the playerbase in general, there's always people around to help out with any questions you might have.

Pro

Stunningly beautiful

The landscape, creatures, structures, even other players are all gorgeous. The textures are seamless, and the character/dinosaur models are just great. The environment ranges from lush green forests, to snowcapped mountains, to incredible coastal views. When you combine all of these things, it adds up to being simply breathtaking.

Pro

Good character creation

When starting a new game the player is allowed to choose between a man or woman, from there is a plethora of options for making a character with a personalized look.

Cons

Con

Humor repeats itself too much

The bit of humor the game offers is a bit broad and is repeated too much, meaning that it is easy to get bored or tired of it pretty quick.

Con

Anti-cheat issues

ARk has started using an anti-cheat tool called Battleye, this has so far broken Linux and Mac support for using official servers. Battleye has also had some issues with banning legit users and does not have a very good reputation. These issues add up to many angry players who paid for the game but now can not play it.

Con

The game can become a grind

At the higher levels, it begins to take a very, very long time to level up (unless you're playing on a custom server). This can make the game tedious to play for some people.

Con

Hard for some PCs to run

Ark is kind of a resource hog - it's not very well optimized and that can cause many players to experience slow graphics.

Con

Early access

Ark is an early access game meaning it is basally in an Alpha or Beta state. Bugs are easily found and many areas of the game lack polish. While t may not cripple the gameplay this is something to consider when purchasing as there is n guarantee the game will ever be finished.